The first job completed in the last few days was to cut up the radiator.  So the original top mounting tabs were cut off, as was the radiator cap mounting.  The radiator cap is going to be in another section of the system, as the radiator is now laying down, so the cap location is no longer the highest point in the system (which is where you need it to be for it to all work properly).

On the lathe I machine some threaded spuds to weld onto the top the radiator, to allow it to receive a bolt.  This makes the installation of the radiator much easier in its new location.  I then cut a circular piece of flat plate, to weld over the hole where the radiator cap was removed.  Then it was time to make a new, larger water outlet at the bottom of the radiator.  This larger outlet is to match up with the larger inlet of the electric water pump, making the plumbing of this much easier as everything is now one size for that section of piping.  I used some alloy pipe, that I welded a ring around the end, then machined this on the lathe to create the retaining lip on the end, that holds the hose on.

This was then re-painted in black wrinkle paint like the rest of the radiator is.

Attention was then turned to modify the intercooler.  Don’t you just love buying nice, new, expensive parts, then taking an Angle Grinder and cutting the ends off it :).  I’ve made up the new curved outlets, and these have been welded together.  The more alloy that I weld, the better I’m getting – along with the help from the new amperage adjustment that is now on the hand piece on the TIG.  They are still not perfect welds, but I was really proud of how these welds turned out (it looks worse in this picture than it does in life).

I still need to weld these onto the intercooler, but this needs to wait until the engine goes back in, so that I can align these outlets in the correct direction to point them to the turbo and the inlet of the engine to make the pipe lengths as short as possible.

Then I cut up the coolant swirl pot that I made about a year ago during the “motor swap” that I was doing, that has now seen a full new chassis being built :/.  Anyway, this now meant that to make the chassis the best it could be, a tube needs to pass through the center of this tank.  So, back then I took the decision to modify the tank and make the chassis in the ideal way.  Now it was time to pay for that decision…. The grinder came out again and the mounting and the water inlet pipe were cut off and ground all smooth.  This is as far as I can go for now, it needs to wait until the motor goes back in so that I can orientate the new inlet to the tank correctly, and make the new mounting bracket for it.

After a 39.9 degree day today, predictably no progress was made… Tomorrow is going to be the same weather wise, but I’m hoping to get out there tomorrow night to finish the painting of the chassis center section, so that the motor and gearbox can go back in, allowing all of the other items above to be finished.

After 3 hrs on the grinder, all of the tubing and the remaining body shell parts have been ground off and smoothed out.

Then spent a bunch of time putting sealant in all of the sections where the firewall meets the chassis tubing, then it was onto painting.

So then the painting began!  Even though I’m probably a week early on the paint, for me its a good moral boost as its a step where the car is actually going back together.

I’ve got some more sanding to do (and pictures to take :)) on the frame in the center section of the car, then that can be painted too.  As soon as that is done the gearbox and motor can go back in so that I can start working on the intercooler and coolant piping.

All of the chassis is now finished, I think….  Or at least it is complete for now.

All of the supports to hold up the bumpers, bonnet and 1/4 panels are all finished and welded up!

In the last post I talked about some of the little bits that I made, so here they are completed and ready to weld onto the car.

So here you can see how the bolts will attached from the bottom.  This bolt will go though the bumper and screw into this little spud.  This is then attached to one of the tubes that make up the car.

Photos of them on the car and finished:

In the first pic, the spud is the bit at the top, fairly easy to see.  These ones will hold the corner of the front 1/4 panel.

In the second pic, its at the bottom of the bars that are heading down and to the front of the car.  These ones will hold the bottom of the bumper and the floor.

I needed to machine up a couple of little threaded pieces to mount the bumper etc.  This involves the lathe, so first item was fixing the piping that runs the coolant.  The existing pipe has spent a little too long in the sun and is no longer very happy, liking to split in various places while nobody is in the shed.  So, first job was to redo that.

I also had to resharpen some of the cutting bits.  So around 40mins of setup, to machine 4 little things that took about 10 minutes.  Nice progress so far….  

Then I needed to weld these little pieces into some tubing with the TIG – Which also needed to be fixed…  So I changed the plug on the front, made up a new cable for it, replaced the switch in the handpeice, modified it to fit the new adjuster knob and then taped it back together like all good shed engineers do.

The hand piece now has the start/stop button on it, and it now also has a knob that I can use to adjust the current that the welder is putting out, right from the hand piece, while I’m still welding!  So what you say, well when doing alloy, or even small steel parts like I was about to do, build up heat as you go.  So when you first start welding, you  need  a higher current, then as the heat builds up in the piece that you are welding you need to turn the current down, else it applies too much heat and you melt a hole in it.  I used to have to stop, put the helmet up, go over to the machine, change it, then start welding again.  Now I can do it from the hand piece – without stopping the weld 🙂

So, after all of that, totaling around 3hrs of work, I now had 4 little pieces of metal…

Very impressive for 3hrs work hey!  

I’ll show what these things become in a future post.

Fitted the panels back on to make sure everything was correctly aligned before I started welding everything up.

It all fits well, which is a nice start 🙂

I then progressed to working out exactly where the exits in the bonnet were going to be placed.  The masking tape rectangles show where the cutouts will be.

And then the night was over…

JC and Terry came around late in the arvo and gave me a hand for the rest of day, and into the night.  Thanks boys!

We got a bunch more of the front framework completed, got the radiator and intercooler mounts all built, made new plates to hold the bonnet and front fenders on.

Then JC found the angle grinder (I had cunningly hidden it under the welder)  and proceeded to perform some important weight reduction – removing all of the remaining standard front end.

Some detail of where the old car stops, and the new begins.

I’ve just got a couple of little braces left to do, and a touch more grinding to clean a few areas up, then the frame painting can start!

Thanks again to the boys for their help, it was a fun night and get a lot done too.

Been a little slack in updating recently…

So, the other weekend I started construction on the last parts of the chassis – the very front end. I lot of the time was taken mocking up the possible locations for the radiator and the intercooler.

In the picture above, the center section of the radiator support panel has been removed, and replace by a lightweight bar.  As I continue to work on the front end, I will slowly remove all of the original front end metalwork, just leaving the lights, bumper and front fenders hanging from the new frame.

Another view…

Mocking up of the radiator and intercooler positions (and yes, I have a wooden strut brace and a cardboard intercooler.  These will be fine unless it rains :))

The I had a couple of other things to clean up.  The second hand dump pipe that I got for the S15 had a small crack in it, so I welded that back up.  Just need to wait until I get the car passed over the pits for the manual gearbox conversion, then this will be fitted up.

This update starts with reflections.

Strange reflections that is…

Jo is hogging the garage with two of her cars, so my girls are sleeping together in the shed.

How cozy.

Onto the real progress.  Most of the time was spent doing interior panel work.

This one is in the rear of the car (just behind where the front seats would be.

Did more panel work on the dash…

I have also made the removable alloy panels for the top of the dash and the passenger foot-well area.

The alloy panel for the top of the transmission tunnel is also done, and I have completed the templates for the sides of the tunnel – I’ll get those cut out as soon as I can scab some more alloy sheet.

These will then need to be welded together.

I mocked up the dash pad, to make sure its all going to fit back as planned.  All is well 🙂

Now that all the interior panel stuff around the has been done, it was time to remove the motor so that I could get inside and finish welding up the tube work and panels.  And after 2hrs of welding non-stop, its almost done.  A few bits need to be ground down – but I’ll leave that for a time when its not so late at night.

These last pictures, while they are good progress, they are almost depressing – I’m almost back where I was a few months ago now the engine is out again….

At least from here, its a bit of grinding, a little more welding, then I could actually start preparing and painting the frame and panels.

I think first though I need to complete the very front end tubing (around the headlights and front bumper).  I was going to leave this part till later, but I really should do it now (Do it right the first time!).  I’ll then need to work out the radiator and inter-cooler mounts, then I can start painting!

Until next time…

Got some more shed time today, with the race car being the focus this time.

Quite a bit of time was spent cleaning up, so I could get the car back on the hoist.

She’s back home now…

First job was to get the new fuel pump and parts mounted.

Then it was onto finishing the firewall.

I’ve just got to make up a small section for around the exhaust.

Now I just have the upper dash section to do, then the motor can come out…

For the second weekend in a row, not real progress to report.

The race  car is off the hoist and is standing on its own 4 feet for the first time in 10 odd months.

The S15 needs the auto gearbox taken out, and a manual put back in, so getting ready to do that on the hoist, maybe next weekend.

Going to do some nights this week to get the race car firewall complete, I’m having race car progress withdrawal…

Spent most of my shed hours today getting the aircon (that I bought almost 3 years ago!) wired up, as I’ve got someone coming out this week to hook up the refrigeration lines.

So I’ve put the wall insulation up behind where the Aircon is being mounted, and ran the power cables from the head unit (the indoor bit) to the outdoor unit and hooked it up.  The wires for the head unit are all terminated and just need to be screwed onto the terminals once the AC guy has hooked up the piping and put the unit back onto the wall mount.

Once that was done, I got started on completing the drivers side footwell of the car.  The first task was to make the small in-fill panel to join up the panels that I built last time.

Then I had to remove the master cylinders from of the pedal box.  Next was making up cardboard templates for the last few panels.  I managed to get quite a complex shape in just two panels.  The panel sits directly behind the pedal box, with a recess cut out behind the accelerator, to allow room for its linkages to move.  You can see it in the pic below – taken from the other side of panel (ie. in the engine bay)

Once all the new panels were cut out they were all tacked into place into the car.  Then I used the pedal box mount as a guide and drilled the matching holes through the panel – this is where the master cylinders will bolt back in, sealing this back up.

And the final result.

And that was all the time I had left today. Next job is to get the passenger side and and dash area into the same state, then I can take the motor out and finish weld all these panels.

Got two hours in the shed tonight and got  my new fuel pump bracket fitted.  I got it for $5, cause it had one if the tabs 1/2 cut off.  Suited me fine cause if I bought a new one I was going to have to cut both tabs off anyway.

So much lighter, and nicer than the rusty steel one that used to be under there 🙂

More significant progress tomorrow hopefully…